"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms....." Samuel Adams, United States Congress, Bill of Rights Ratification, 1779
"It is because the people are citizens that they are with safety armed. The danger (where there is any) from armed citizens, is only to the government, not to the society." Joel Barlow: Equality in America, 1792
"No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the State. Such are a well regulated Militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen, and husbandman; who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen." James Madison, United States Congress, Bill of Rights Ratification, 1779
"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property...Horrid mischief would ensue were the law abiding deprived the use of them." Thomas Paine, 1775.
"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops." Noah Webster, "An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution" (1787)
"To disarm the people - that was the best and most effective way to enslave them ...." George Mason ( Framer of the Declaration of Rights, Virginia, 1776, which became the basis for the U.S. Bill of Rights ) 3 Elliot, Debate at 380.
"The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them." Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debate at 646
"The great object is that every man be armed" and "everyone who is able may have a gun." Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." Alexander Hamilton
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ...." Samuel Adams, "Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer", August 20, 1789
"No Freeman shall be debarred the use of arms in his own lands or tenements." Thomas Jefferson, from the Virginia Constitution, Third Draft
"the people are confirmed by the next article [the Second Amendment] in their right to keep and bear their private arms." Trench Coxe in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution", under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 18 June 1789
"Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...in private self-defense..." John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the UAS, 471 (1788)